Physiognomy

through the example of the description of Tegea, a city well known to P., which gives her the opportunity to highlight Pausanias’ selectivity when dealing with local stories, myth, ritual practices, history and literary tradition. Chapter 8 is concerned with Pausanias’ approach to works of art: his (in our eyes) often disappointingly incomplete descriptions are here set against examples of ecphrases known from contemporary authors such as Lucian, Philostratus and Dio of Prusa in order to show that although Pausanias may be below the usual standards of literary technique, his descriptions were nevertheless those of a true connoisseur and that his selection and interpretation of works of art aimed to convey a certain image of Greece which was to have a strong in·uence on later generations. Pausanias’ reception in modern times is the subject of the two μnal chapters, the μrst dealing with the rediscovery of his text in the Renaissance and its subsequent in·uential assessment by famous readers such as Winckelmann, Caylus and Frazer, the second looking at Pausanias’ impact on the rediscovery of Greece through famous travellers and on the shaping of a new Greek identity after the foundation of the modern Greek state in 1821. These two chapters are truly fascinating, and one wishes there had been more space to develop these themes. Interested readers can now consult the beautifully illustrated volume edited by M. Georgopoulou et al., Following Pausanias. The Quest for Greek Antiquity, New Castle, DE/Athens, 2007 (too recent to be included in P.’s bibliography). P.’s deep acquaintance with Pausanias and her clear thought and style make this a highly commendable book. Footnotes are kept to a minimum, but the information is always relevant and the bibliography is complete and up to date. Every chapter is introduced by a well-chosen quotation which sets the picture for the subsequent discussion, and various maps (the graphical design of which is somewhat wanting, however) complement the text. Though deeply learned and informative, this book is an easy and enjoyable read which succeeds in showing that Pausanias, far from being the dull writer and mere compiler of facts he is traditionally considered to be, deserves to be taken seriously as an interesting and engaging author with a literary design of great importance and in·uence.

decisive factor ' (p. 92). This way of combining history and topography is illustrated through the example of the description of Tegea, a city well known to P., which gives her the opportunity to highlight Pausanias' selectivity when dealing with local stories, myth, ritual practices, history and literary tradition. Chapter 8 is concerned with Pausanias' approach to works of art: his (in our eyes) often disappointingly incomplete descriptions are here set against examples of ecphrases known from contemporary authors such as Lucian, Philostratus and Dio of Prusa in order to show that although Pausanias may be below the usual standards of literary technique, his descriptions were nevertheless those of a true connoisseur and that his selection and interpretation of works of art aimed to convey a certain image of Greece which was to have a strong in·uence on later generations. Pausanias' reception in modern times is the subject of the two μnal chapters, the μrst dealing with the rediscovery of his text in the Renaissance and its subsequent in·uential assessment by famous readers such as Winckelmann, Caylus and Frazer, the second looking at Pausanias' impact on the rediscovery of Greece through famous travellers and on the shaping of a new Greek identity after the foundation of the modern Greek state in 1821. These two chapters are truly fascinating, and one wishes there had been more space to develop these themes. Interested readers can now consult the beautifully illustrated volume edited by M. Georgopoulou et al., Following Pausanias. The Quest for Greek Antiquity, New Castle, DE/Athens, 2007 (too recent to be included in P.'s bibliography).
P.'s deep acquaintance with Pausanias and her clear thought and style make this a highly commendable book. Footnotes are kept to a minimum, but the information is always relevant and the bibliography is complete and up to date. Every chapter is introduced by a well-chosen quotation which sets the picture for the subsequent discussion, and various maps (the graphical design of which is somewhat wanting, however) complement the text. Though deeply learned and informative, this book is an easy and enjoyable read which succeeds in showing that Pausanias, far from being the dull writer and mere compiler of facts he is traditionally considered to be, deserves to be taken seriously as an interesting and engaging author with a literary design of great importance and in·uence. The importance of Greek physiognomy, and of what one might call a Greco-Roman physiognomic consciousness, for our understanding of ancient habits of description and representation has never been overlooked by classicists, and in recent years physiognomy has been deployed in stimulating accounts of the censoriousness and The Classical Review vol. 59 no. 2 © The Classical Association 2009; all rights reserved aggression characteristic of masculine aristocratic competition in Greece and Rome alike. One thinks of the work of scholars like Maud Gleason, Tasmyn Barton, Anthony Corbeill or Erik Gunderson, to name only a very few, whose investigations have inevitably relied on our thin remains of ancient physiognomic writings, principally the Pseudo-Aristotelian essay Physiognomonica (actually two pseudo-Aristotelian essays under one title) and, more crucially, on the various adaptations of the celebrated treatment of physiognomic diagnosis by the second-century intellectual μgure Polemon of Laodicea. The original of Polemon's work is lost, but versions in Greek and Arabic exist, as well as a Latin account. Together they provide us with valuable evidence for recovering Polemon's system. At the same time, their divergences -especially those obtaining between the classical texts and their Arabic counterparts -invite illuminating cross-cultural conclusions about the adaptation of Greek physiognomy by later Muslim traditions of scholarship and cultural display.
S. Swain and his colleagues have put the study of Greco-Roman physiognomy on an entirely new footing in what can only be described as a splendid model of collaborative research. Whatever subsequent use is made of Polemon's method by scholars attempting to unpack the cultural meaning, in various genres and contexts, of speciμc descriptions (or even of the act of describing), this will remain the necessary starting point. The topic is by no means ancillary, of course, and this volume contains several essays that mark, in extended discussions, its implications, complications and limitations. The Introduction is brief but vital reading: it explains the purpose and ambitions of the book, it reviews the system used in this volume for making references in the extant versions of Polemon's work to their common subjects (p. 1 n. 1 and p. 332), and it o ¶ers a concise account of the fate of Polemon's text as it passed through history and as it crossed into Near-Eastern languages. Thereafter the book divides into three parts: (i) physiognomy in Greco-Roman antiquity, (ii) Greek physiognomy in medieval Islam, and (iii) physiognomic texts with translations.
G. Boys-Stones surveys the limited role of physiognomic thinking in ancient philosophical arguments about psychology. His erudite discussion, ranging from the familiar anecdote about Zopyrus' diagnosis of Socrates' private desires through Aristotle (and his in·uence) as well as the thought of Posidonius, Galen and later Platonists (including a detailed review of the philosophical implications of pseudo-Aristotle and of the anonymous Latin physiognomy), argues that for no philosophical system was physiognomy 'the empirical starting-point for philosophical speculation' (p. 21). Only those philosophical schools whose own theoretical orientation was congenial to physiognomy employed or sought to explain any of its methods. In view of the pervasiveness of physiognomic thinking in ancient culture at large, this is a sobering conclusion, and one that speaks to the credit and independence of mind of Greek philosophic speculation. In a comprehensive and detailed chapter, Swain contextualises and explains Polemon's Physiognomy. Rightly emphasising Polemon's situation and his contemporary signiμcance -'Polemon develops his thoughts within the cultural system of his day' (p. 125) -Swain examines central aspects of the conventions, values and morality of the Second Sophistic, after which he rehearses what can be known of Polemon's career. Finally he turns to the Physiognomy itself in a meticulous yet admirably lucid explanation of the work's organisation, tendencies and purposes. The μnal essay in this section, by J. Elsner, examines the in·uence of physiognomics on ancient art and, more intriguingly, the in·uence of art, especially the art of the Hadrianic period, on physiognomy itself the classical review (especially in regard to the representation and interpretation of the eye, the principal focus of Polemon's exposition).
The discussions of Polemon in the medieval Islamic world are fascinating and no less thorough than the contributions in the book's μrst section. R. Hoyland contextualises the entry of Polemon's treatise into the Muslim world by way of detailed reviews of Arabic translations of Greek scholarship, the nature of physiognomy in Islamic society before Polemon's work was introduced, and the central social circumstances for physiognomic scrutiny, such as court life. Along the way he observes key di ¶erences between the explication of physiognomy in Greek and in Muslim cultures: for instance, Islamic physiognomists endeavoured to provide 'a proper theoretical foundation to the science of physiognomy, something that no Greek exponent of this art ever did' (p. 263). A. Ghersetti explores the connections between Greek physiognomy and Islamic medical writings, drawing into her examination both Polemon and pseudo-Aristotle: physiognomy beneμted in status, she concludes, by its associations with the more obvious scientiμc and philosophical underpinnings of medicine (a reality not unrelated to a similar point made in Hoyland's chapter). Finally, Ghersetti and Swain situate Polemon's system within the Arabic tradition. This entails an exhaustive review of relevant Arabic materials and their distinctive adaptations of Polemon. They conclude that, in addition to the relatively close adaptation of Polemon observable in the Leiden Polemon, one can detect an alternative Islamicised tradition, the religiosity of which is more conspicuous, the examples in which reveal a greater degree of non-Greek ethnicity and whose basic structure of exposition diverges from its Greek antecedents.
The μnal section of the book consists of new texts and translations of the Leiden Polemon, the Istanbul Polemon (each in Arabic), the Physiognomy of Adamantius the Sophist (the best Greek witness to Polemon), the anonymous Latin Physiognomy and pseudo-Aristotle. The introduction to the Leiden Polemon is especially important for its explanation of its signiμcant departures from the assumptions and methods lying behind the previous (and heretofore standard) edition of this text. Never before have all these physiognomic texts been so easily accessible to English readers, and I suspect this section of the book will be its most frequently consulted portion. The translations from Greek and Latin are helpful and lucid, and they are accompanied by clear explanations of their alterations of previous texts. Similarly valuable notes accompany the translations from Arabic.
The range and the learning of this book, then, are obvious and gratifying. Its utility is equally apparent. It is a pleasing feature of this volume that contributors are allowed to disagree with one another. For instance, Swain rejects Barton's suggestion that Polemon's method deploys excessive exactness as a strategy for mystiμcation, in e ¶ect impeding his readers from replicating his own degree of skilful interpretation and so raising his own professional stock (pp. 155-6; 181). By contrast, Elsner is willing to entertain the idea (p. 221). I noticed few typographical errors (in the languages I can read). The bibliography is extensive. The index, though satisfactory, could have been more thorough; readers seeking shortcuts to speciμc physiognomic discussions in the ancient sources, for instance, will be disappointed.
Naturally a brief review can hardly do justice to the scholarship of this team. This is an impressive achievement.